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(No Model.) 2 Sheets-Sheet 1.

O. 0. ALLEE. PACKING MACHINE. No. 536,772. Patented Apr. 2, 1895.

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(No Model.) 2 Sheets-Sheet 2. O. O. ALLEIL PACKING MACHINE.

No. 536,772. I Patented Apr. 2, 1895.

NITED STATES PATENT 7 OFFICE.

CHARLES O. ALLEE, OF INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA, ASSIGNOR TO WILLIAM H. HUBBARD, OF SAME PLACE.

PACKING-MACHINE.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 536,772, dated April 2, 1895.

Application filed March 27, 1893.

T0 at whomit may concern:

Be it known that I, CHARLES O. ALLEE, a citizen of the United States, residing at Indianapolis, in the county of Marion and State of Indiana, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Packing-Machines; and I do hereby declare the following to be a full, clear, and exact description of the in vention, such as will enable others skilled in the art to which it-appertains to make and use the same.

My invention relates to machines for compacting bran, seed hulls and other light cheap bulky substances which require an inclosing wrapper; and the purposes of my invention are, first, to rapidly and economically compact bran and other light substances in cheap inclosing Wrappers, and, second, to prevent any portion of the substance packed from cohering or caking by beingover-heated under excessive hard rubbing. I attain these objects by the mechanism shown in the accompanying drawings,'in which like letters indicate the same parts.

Figural is a perspective .of my machine. Fig. 2 is a side elevation. Fig. 3 is an enlarged view of the compressor and core. Fig. etshows the compressor removed from around the core.

The legs F F and the plate F constitute the frame of the machine. The pulley P is driven by a suitable belt and geared to its shaft by the clutch'c operated by the lever L. The shaft a driven by the pulley P drives the gear G which drives the shaft S. This shaft is supported vertically in the frame F in ordinary journal boxes. The shaft S .is hollow and through and within it another shaft g is held rigidly by the brace g. The shaft S revolves, and the shaft g does not.

On the lower end of the fixed shaft g is a core R which like its shaft does not revolve. The face of this core is channeled in several places e, e, e, e, Fig. 4, the channels being largest at the top and gradually decreasing in size as they lie in a spiral course in the face of the core.

Supported on the lower end of the hollow revolving shaft S is a compressor M that encompasses the core B. This compressor has an interior shape complementary to the core Serial No. 467,903. (No model.)

R. The compressor M has channels in its substance, which oross the channels of the core at about right angles. The lower end of the compressor may or may not be cutoff. The position of the compressor M with relation to the tube T, whether that compressor encompasses the core or not, is that it must project out of and beyond the compass of the tube T, at least far enough to allow a How of bran into the higher lateral areas of the spiral channels of the compressor, and at the same time out of the lower lateral areas of those channels, when that portionofit which projects from the packing tube is submerged and revolved in bran which is under restraint and pressure as hereinafter explained.

The dimensions of the core R are optional and it is removable at will from the compressor, as the drawings indicate. It is better to remove it when packing some substances as flour for instance, which is injured in its bread qualities by over-much rubbing. When the core is removed, the compressor acts like the usual auger and is virtually an anger with its flanges turned up at the circumference toward the shaft. It is an anger and something more in addition, with its flanges attached to the shaft at their circumferenceinstead of their center. If the flanges of the usual packing auger were so bent up, the channels would be straight. There is a certain agitation of the bran desired and obtained under circumstances as hereinafter set forth, by simply curving these channels before bending up the flanges, so that after being bent up the channels are spiral in shape. In the usual flat packing anger, the edges of the areas of the spirals lie in the circumference of the anger. In my compressor the external areas of the spirals themselves lie in the circumference.

The difference of construction enables me to get not only the downward discharge of the usual flat packing anger, but a downward radial and spiral discharge. On the lower end of the packing tube T is the flangef, the object of which is to close up the jacket, when bran is being forced into it; otherwise the bran would rise up and overflow the jacket.

The upper end of the packing tube is firmly fixed to the body of the machine. Into the IOC upper end of it the spout S opens and through this bran is fed to the machine.

The jacket .I the object of which is to support the sack while the bran that flows into the tube is being driven into it, rests upon and is supported by the ascending and descending platform P. This platform is supported by the chains 0 c which wind on the shaft 0. On the outer end of this shaft is the hand wheel B by which the platform may be raised or lowered; also on this shaft is the llrake wheel H, upon which binds the band wheel brake 7t. Attached to this band is a lever and weight 10 such as is used on most all similar machines; also on this shaft is a rope wheel B about which winds a weighted rope. This weight counter balances the platform and jacket. Resistance to the incoming bran being forced into the sack by the compressor, is obtained by moving outward from the fulcrum the weight on the brakelever, 10

The operations of my machine are described as follows: Bran fiowingthrongh the spout S fills the tube T and by the revolution of the compressor arms a, a, a, it is facilitatedin its flow into the channels of the core R. The friction of the innersurface of the channeled compressor M, when it revolves, crowds, forges and drags the bran from the larger to the smaller areas of the channels in the face of the core R, thereby compressing, bruising, forging, and crushing the flaky bran particles and thereby killing in great measure the elasticity of a compacted mass of them. If the device should pulverize the flakes, then like any powder a mass of them would be palpable, pliable and inelastic, but if the fiakes be only bruised by severe forging, dragging and pressure, they will retain the form of bran and yet be made sufficiently free from fluffiness and elasticity to be easily compacted and held as a compact mass. Necessarily as the bran is forced along the decreasing channels of the core,it is constantly shaved ed by the inner edges of the channels in the compressor, and thus is caught in these spiral channels beneath the spiral faces of which it is forced downward and outward into the compacted mass beneath by the backward revolutions of the compressor, until by the resistance of the increasing compacted contents of the receptacle within the jacket J, the platform Pis forced down and the platform comes in contact with and operates an automatic device such as is in common use for cutting off the stream of bran flowing into the packing tube T. Thereupon the operator should promptly lift the weight 10 and lover, thereby removing the brake from the friction pulley H whereupon the platform descends of its own weight to the floor. I do not throw the machine out of gear and stop it when the sack is filled.

Bran, seed hulls and similar substances,

have but a small intrinsic value, still it is necessary to store and transport them with r the least expenditure for their inclosing wrappers. These substances may be solidly compressed and yet retain their elasticity, in which case strong and expensive sacks are required to hold them. By my invention I destroy their elasticity with little outlay of power, while compressing them. Therefore I am enabled to use a cheap, light material for wrappers. Other devices might destroy the elasticity by destroying the fiber of the substances, but by my device I crush the fibers to the extent of eliminating elasticity without destroying the recognized form of the substance, by caking it or pulverizing it, facts essential to commercial bran, as owners of stock will not feed unfamiliar food to their stock.

One of the ditficulties in compressing bran with the ordinary packer is to avoid the forming of a f caked lump in the compacted mass by the auger rubbing for too long a time under pressure the mass beneath. This occurs when the sack is filled and the operator fails to immediately lower the platform, or when the sack is only partly filled and the bran stream is for any reason prematurely cut off, conditions that occur so often that a remedy is necessary. Very heavy pressure of the auger upon the mass is essential to the compactness desired, but the friction due to that pressure, if continued on the same particles, quickly develops a degree of heat in them that discolors them and softens the resinous elements in them so that they cohere in a discolored cake or chunk of bran, which on being discovered by the purchaser, leads him to reject the whole under the impression that an injurious adulterant has been mixed with the bran. To avoid this caking it is necessary not to continuously rub the same bran particles; in other words to either, first, stop the anger in its revolutions when the sack is filled; second, to cutoff the bran supply and at the same time to drop the filled sack away from the revolving auger, or, third, do, as I provide for in this invention, namely, keep the bran particles flowing to and from the auger whenit happens to be revolving against the compacted bran beneath and no new bran is flowing down from above.

The first device is the old one and is objec tionable because to stop the augerin its revolutions, it must be thrown out of gear when each sack is filled and thrown in again on beginning to fill another.

In the improved bran packers, sacks are filled in the large flour mills atthe rate of one in two minutes and the consequent crash, wear and tear of such constant throwing the machine in and out of gear, make liability for a breakdown too great and of all plants that require reliable machinery, flour mills lead as they run so constantly.

As to the second device, it complicates a machine too much to provide mechanism for both cutting off the bran stream and at the same time dropping the receptacle away from ICC seems the revolving auger. I avoid this complication of parts by automatically cutting off the bran stream by any of the ordinary devices operated by the descending platform,and by using spiral channels in my compressor, and adjusting the compressor in the lower end of the packing tube so that the areas of the spiral.

channels are projected far enough down in the packed bran in the receptacle to keep up a constant motion of those particles in contact with the compressor, when the bran stream is cut off and thereby avoid overheating the bran, for itis apparent that as the compressor is fixed in its revolutions so that only a revolving motion is possible, therefore the bran that is in the spiral channels is forced down by the backward revolvings of the auger. The compressor is fixed and cannot rise, and therefore the bran must go downward. Now as the bran in the spiral channels must go down, therefore constantly near the top of those'channels the nearest bran is crowded into the vacated areas of those channels by the adjacent bran in the receptacle, for at this moment there is no new bran flowing into the vacated channels from the tube to fill them. Their contents are constantly being forced down and the pressure of the packed bran in the upper end of the receptacle is-constantly filling the first vacated space in the channels,

which of course is the highest point exposed to that pressure. Thus an upward and downward flowing of the bran is kept up so long as the new bran is kept out off, and the compressor isjn contact with the compressed contents of the receptacle. Not only are the heated particles being constantly replaced by the cooler ones, and the scorching of the bran thereby deferred to a safe limit, but that constant flowing and agitation breaks up, prevents and makes quite impossible the caking of the bran. Nothing but the very grossest neglect by the operator will scorch the bran. The receiving ends of the spiral channels in the compressor being up in the tube and exposed only to the in'flowing bran, and at a point wherethe bran in the receptacle cannot rise up and hinder their filling with new bran, it follows that there is no waste of power by nedless packing and re-packing of the same particles. If straight vertical channels are used in the compressor, their edges will shave off and force out the bran in them,but there will not be in the bran under any circumstances, the peculiar agitation described. The spiral channels in the compressor are essential to that agitation but the core is not. The core is essential only to the crushing of the bran. As the agitation is accomplished by the upper face or sides of the spiral channels, therefore the degree of agitation is contingent upon the width of those faces, or in other words, the thickness of the compressor shell. This thickness may increase and the core decrease until there is no core and only a compressor solid excepting Where channeled out spirally. This device would eifectually pack bran and avoid caking because of the spiral channels being axially projected into the jacket and exposed to the resisting bran, but it could not diminish the elasticity of the bran as described. The core could simply be eliminated from the device and the compressor remain a shell and it then is an efficient machine for packing flour and other powdered inelastic substances.

The essential relation of my fixed compressor to the adjacent parts is, first, that the receiving ends of the channels of the compressor shall revolve within the compass of the packing tube, that the semi-elastic bran cannot rise up and fill them, in whichcase mere agitation would supplant progressive packing; second, that the spiral channels of the compressor shall project from the tube into the compass of the jacket in order that their external areas shall be sufficiently exposed to the resistance of the platform transmitted through the bran to produce the desired agita'tion when the bran supply is cut off in the manner described.

I am aware that there are many devices which by means of fiat angers do rub down the substances to be packed into a compact mass beneath in a receptacle, but do not also previously crush and break the bran particles.

I am also aware that there are patented machines in which appear an auger that re volves both in and beyond the compass of the packing tube, but which said auger reciprocates vertically, impinging upon the surface of the packed bran in its downward stroke and screwing out of the packed bran in its upward reciprocation, but because of its screwing out of the packed bran it therefore cannot produce the agitation as described, and which is caused by my fixed revolving compressor, which depends upon its fixedness to prevent caking the bran; but

What I claim, and for which I desire Letters Patent, is

1. The combination of gearing driven by suitable mechanism, a revoluble hollow shaft actuated by said gearing, a compressor secured to said shaft, a non-revoluble shaft within the hollow shaft, a core secured to the non-revoluble shaft and located within the compressor and a packing tube through which said shafts are projected with a reciprocating platform and a jacket located upon said platform, all substantially as described.

2. In a packing machine the resisting platform P and the jacket J, in combination with the packing tube T, the fixed revoluble shaft S driven by suitable gearing, and a spirally channeled compressor adjusted on the shaft S, so the receiving ends of its spiral channels will be exposed within the compass of the packing tube T, and so the external areas of its spiral channels shall be exposed, substantially as described, beyond the compass of the packing tube T.

3. In a machine for packing bran and other elastic substances a resisting platform and a IOG IO scribed beyond the compass of the packing tube, and a core located within the hollow compressor and having spiral channels approximately at right angles to the channels in the compressor, all for the purposes set forth.

In testimony whereof I affix my signature I5 in presence of two witnesses.

CHARLES O. ALLEE. Witnesses:

JOSEPH A. MINTURN, W. L. BERSHONG. 

